Every student in the UAE will soon learn how artificial intelligence works, from the data and algorithms behind it to the ethical questions it raises, under a new curriculum cleared for rollout across the country’s public and private schools. The approval was made public on Wednesday.
The plan runs deeper than classroom lessons. Roughly 22,000 teachers and educators are set to receive training that puts AI tools to work in lesson planning, student assessment, curriculum analysis, and day-to-day instruction. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President, Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, framed the effort as preparation for a workforce whose skills must keep pace with rapid change.
“The objective is to train 22,000 teachers and educators to utilize AI as a support in teaching, assessment, curriculum analysis, lessons planning, and fostering a spirit of innovation among students,” he said.
The measures emerged from a UAE Cabinet session chaired by Sheikh Mohammed. According to the Cabinet, an earlier trial run of the AI curriculum in public schools had already delivered encouraging outcomes before the wider approval was granted.
Sheikh Mohammed placed the UAE among a small group of nations that have built AI instruction directly into schooling at every grade level. He argued that the scale of technological upheaval demands a shift in how educators approach their own profession.
“The huge technological transformations of our era will change the reality, processes, and tools of education… To fulfil their new role, teachers will have to become lifelong learners… because if we teach our children today using the same methods of yesterday, we are depriving them of their future,” he said.
Beyond its own borders, the Cabinet signed off on a framework to share the curriculum and its materials with education ministries elsewhere and with the broader international education community. Officials describe the curriculum’s purpose as giving young people a grounded understanding of both the possibilities the technology opens up and the dangers it carries.
